The Board of Monitors had hardly recovered from this panic when another alarming symptom appeared. Miss Bailey began to watch for letters, and large envelopes began to reward her watchfulness. Daily was Patrick sent to the powers that were to demand a letter, and daily he carried one, and a sorely heavy heart, back to his sovereign. In exactly the same sweetly insistent way had he been sent many a time and oft to seek tidings of the laggard milkman. His colleagues, when he laid these facts before them, were of the opinion that things looked very dark for Teacher. Said Nathan: "You know how she says we should be monitors on her weddinge? Well, it could to be lies. She marries maybe already." Patrick promptly knocked the Monitor of Window Boxes down upon the rough asphalt of the yard and kicked him. "Miss Bailey's no sneak," he cried hotly. "If she was married she'd just as lief go and tell." "Well," Morris began, "I had once a auntie--" "Your auntie makes me sick," snapped Patrick. But Morris went on quite undisturbedly: "I had once a auntie und she had awful kind feelings over a stylish floorwalker, und he was loving mit her. So-o-oh! They marries! Und they don't say nothings to nobody. On'y the stylish floor walker he writes on my auntie whole bunches of lovin' letters." "She ain't married," Patrick reiterated. "She ain't." "Well, she will be," muttered Nathan vindictively. "Und the new teacher will lick you the while you fights. It's fierce how you make me biles on my bones. Think shame." When the ruffled Monitor of the Window Boxes had been soothed by the peaceful Guardian of the Gold-Fish, the cabinet held council. Nathan suggested that it might be possible to bribe the interloper. They would give him their combined wealth and urge him to turn his eyes upon Miss Blake, whose room was across the hall. She was very big and would do excellently well for him, whereas she was entirely too long and too wide for them. Morris maintained that Teacher might be held by gratitude. A list should be made out, and, each in turn, a child a day, should give her a present. Patrick listened to these ideas in deep and restive disgust. He urged instant and copious bloodshed. His big brother's gang could "let daylight into the dude" with enjoyment and despatch. They would watch him ceaselessly and they would track him down. The watching was an easy matter, for Teacher, in common with the majority of rulers, lived much in the public eye. The stranger was often detected prowling in her vicinity. He even began to bring her to school in the mornings, and on these occasions there were always violets in her coat. He used to appear at luncheon time and vanish with her. He used to come in the afternoon and have tea in Room 18 with two other teachers and with Teacher. The antagonism of the Monitor of Gold Fish became so marked that Miss Bailey was forced to remonstrate.